The Week Behind

As you can probably tell from the reprive in posts, the last few days have been increasingly busy. Let's see if I can re-cap.

Things went sharply downhill after the last post. I decided to take a siesta nap and ended up sleeping for eight hours, just enough time to wake up and regret it. I decided to lay in a half-sleep for the rest of the night without eating, and when I finally found some breakfast in the morning my stomach imploded (you could hear it when it happened) and I was out of comission until afternoon.

Having been off my feet for some 21 hours, it was quite a task to switch from my own personal room to the four-bed (at the risk of sounding morbid, they were all coffin-sized) room of the same size.

All us Americans got together later in the afternoon, learned what we were doing, and set out upon the city like a tiny tiny plague that clogged the narrow streets. For dinner, about half of the 35 person group decended upon one tiny restaurant and prevented at least eight locals from entering. Feeling adventurous, I ordered what translated into "Charcol Flowers" according to my pocket guide. Our server, when asked "parla inglese?" corrected us with "parlo itliano." This led to me trying to order a 4 kg steak. It ended up being just about that size. The price tag matched.


(The holiday lights in Siena's streets)

Friday entailed a brief walking tour of the town, just to know where everything was. I learned of an opera to celebrate epiphany from Mark, a music major from South Oregon. Only he and I went to the very very old theater with very old Italians, and it was more than worth it. Mark knew of most of the music, so watching it was like watching Seinfeld with Larry David (my similies . . . they're rusty). We came back to the hotel to follow a trail of noise to my room and discover roughly 31 Americans, wine in hands.

Saturday marked the end of my stay at the Golden Cannon and the move to the apartment - exactly 211 steps away, by farthest the most centralized living of anyone in the program. It's on a street called paradise - via del paradiso - and rightfully so: wireless internet, weekly changed sheets, and a balcony that offers a view of rooftops, San Dominico (the church where St. Catherine's head resides) and the Tuscan horizon (if you lean around the corner).

It's a dorm-style layout with six bedrooms on the 4th floor (four girls from the program live one floor down) and no occupants as of yet besides me and Mike to use the common kitchen and living space. Look for pictures very soon. For now, here's the view from our window.



Those bright lights are the soccer stadium, there's a large patio (possibly for us) just out of the shot(s) at the bottom, and that pale yellow building across the street on the right is the police station. We hear the sirens.

The roomate: Mike Green brought one backpack (a backpacking backpack) and one laptop bag. I brought two suitcases, a backpack, and a small carry-on. I will continue to feel sheepish.

For more on Mike (and to experience Siena in blog stereo, in conjunction with this) visit his blog at mikegreen.org.

Saturday was ended with a tour of the city by a native Sienese, starting in the Piaza del Campo (Siena's Red Square) and ending after the Duomo (Siena's Zebra Cathedral). We asked a lot about the contrada she was from, and she gave us a lot of cool insider info - like the fistfight schedule before il palio.

Attendance at dinner was 100% as it was paid for. One pasta course had something sweet like apples in it. One side of one table got cut-off from wine. I learned that the loud American stereotype is not only true but also loud.

Sunday was a day of reckoning. After much fear and doubt about ticket availability for the AC Siena - Inter Milan match, a few of us headed up the street and underground into a room that looked like this for most of the day:



And I waited through it twice for a grand total of two hours. I volunteered to brave the mass for seven tickets, only to reach the front and realize that I needed seven passports. So I pushed my way out, creating a brutal vaccuum behind me, and sent everyone off to get their ID. I rejoined the mass and waited for the second hour. Success.



AC Siena only moved up to serie A (Italian for "the men") a short while ago, but they are comfortable in the middle of the standings now despite having to play tough teams like #2 Inter Milan. Two of our fellow Americans (Mike included) ended up with tickets in the visiting (and rowdier) section to our left where the chants were louder and the fires were . . . well, there were just fires. AC Siena pulled a bit of an upset by forcing a 0-0 tie to the chants of "Si-en-A! Si-en-A!" in the final minutes.